Family law actions are emotional things. While the divvying up of assets, assignment of debts, allocation of custody and parent time, and awards of child support and alimony are black and white things, underlying the entire process is a mess of emotions, largely unpleasant ones. Anger, pain, rage, desperation, panic, despair, sadness, frustration, helplessness, hopelessness….Swirling in with that horrible mix is Fear.

Fear is a huge part of any major life change….fear of the unknown–what happens with my budget when I’m limited to x amount of dollars a month? What happens to my retirement goals when I have to pay out x dollars a month? Why should I have to pay money to this person who is hurting me? When will I get to see my kids? What if my ex makes my kids hate me? How will I pay all the expenses I need to for my kids? What if I can’t pay the rent on this child support/alimony amount? How am I supposed to get a job and take care of my kids at the same time? Who’s gonna hire me??? Is anyone ever gonna want to be with me again????

I would suggest that much of the reason people behave irrationally, do dumb things, say dumb things, try to avoid legal action, or any of the thousands of different ways people end up hurting themselves in family cases is out of fear: “If I avoid the process server, they can’t serve me, and this will all go away.” “He said there’s a warrant out for my arrest if I try and show up to court….I can’t get arrested!”

While legal proceedings can be scary, the best way to deal with them is through Knowledge. Be proactive–don’t wait until the last minute to seek legal advice. If you’re scared about a threat made by the Other, ASK someone who knows or can find out about whether there’s any truth to the threat. If you married a bully, be ready to deal with a bully. Is it scary? Hell YES it is. But avoiding it, hiding, pretending it’s not happening, remaining willfully ignorant will do more to hurt you in the long AND short run than squaring your shoulders and addressing the situation.

Case in point:

I got divorced in 2005. At the time, I’d been a stay at home mom, had 4 kids, the oldest of which were 8 year old twins, and had no money to my own name other than what my husband brought in. My marriage had come apart, and my mental health was deteriorating. I couldn’t stay married and live. And No, I’m not being dramatic when I say that. I was scared to death.

So how did I handle it?

I rolled over and died, in a manner of speaking. My husband hired a lawyer, who drafted an agreement taking everything away from me except for some really minimal bits of Stuff. I didn’t fight to get custody of the kids I’d been primary caretaker of for their entire lives. I didn’t even attempt to stay in my house, or get alimony, or ask for half of the rest of our marital, not-insignificant assets. I signed my husband’s agreement. That became the terms of my divorce, and gave him custody of my kids.

I flat out gave up. Out of paralyzing, crippling Fear. Everything my husband said about how miserable he’d make me if I tried to get even statutory minimums under the law for ANYTHING, I believed. All the little demeaning, demoralizing comments he threw out at me, I believed. I was terrified–terrified of a legal fight, terrified of my kids getting hurt any worse than they already were, terrified of losing my mind before it was all said and done…Terrified. Scared. Panicked.

And so, out of blind, crippling, numbing, paralyzing fear, I gave up. Everything–my kids, my home, any portion of 10 years of marriage…all of it. Without a fight.

Ask me how much I regret that. And when you do, bring tissues, because I’m going to cry my eyes out on you, even though it’s been nearly 13 years since all that happened.

DON’T YOU BE LIKE ME. You be BRAVE. Find your support people. Face your fears, even if you have to face them quietly, by seeking out help online, or at a victim’s crisis center. Get real information. Do a little research. DON’T GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT! For the love of all that is good and holy, I am begging you, do not let fear take your life from you. You can do it. I swear, it’s hard as hell, but you CAN. And you Must.

A final Scene from the story of fear in my life: I am at my Aunt Nancy’s house, curled up on the floor in her bathroom, sobbing out of fear and the misery that came from letting my fear cripple me when it counted most. She is sitting next to me, on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest, her arm around my shoulders. She is saying, “I wish I could poor courage into your spine so you can stand.”

I say to you–Imagine me pouring courage into your spine. Stand up. You may be afraid, but don’t let it control you. You are not alone.

Tomorrow is the first day of school for my kids. I have a freshman and a senior in high school, starting Tomorrow. The first day of school is always a little bittersweet. It’s exciting to see my kids getting older, growing, all those great things that parents so enjoy, that we are lucky to be able to witness. But it’s also just another marker of time, and my children growing up, and not being Children anymore.

First day of school 2010…they’re not little anymore…

I have been there for the first day of school every year since my divorce was final, 12 1/2 years ago. Whether I lived 2 minutes away or 7 hours away. There were a lot of years that I’d hug my kids, see them off on the bus, then drive away and cry for hours. I don’t have to drive away and cry anymore–tomorrow, for the first time EVER, school is starting during MY parent time week. Not that it really matters much anymore…I’ve lived within 3 blocks of my ex-husband for going on 3 years now, so even if he has the kids for the week, I’m just a minute away.

The hard part for me is the Looking Back that we tend to do at the beginning of a new school year. And I’m not over all the loss from the past years enough yet to do that without becoming an emotional mess. You know what they say–Time and mercy heal all wounds. Still waiting on time and mercy….

I spent last Friday in a divorce mediation. The marriage spanned two decades; the parties have 5 kids. By my client’s account, it was not a happy marriage, and the miracle was that it had not ended sooner.

The agreement we mediated was about as good as it gets in terms of being a statutorily equitable split. My client WANTS to get divorced, but she’s still very upset about the whole thing. It’s just not really fair, even if it’s equitable. And Why?

Because it will never BE “fair.” Because she did not get married to get divorced. Because she has 5 kids who are heartbroken and disillusioned and upset about the situation their parents are in. Because she had planned on a Future, that didn’t include getting divorced, that may have included kids’ graduations from high school and weddings and grandkids, with all the traditions you see in an intact family. Because at one time, she had a Dream of what life as a married person would look like.

And that Dream is dead, not to be resuscitated. No divorce settlement will ever be able to make all the pain ok or right or fix it. Getting divorced Hurts. Bad. Even when it really NEEDS to happen. Getting divorced is like running head-on into a wall. Boom. Turn around. Start over. Somehow. And a lot of times that “starting over” is from less than Scratch. Like, no retirement left, no job experience, kids and expenses but not enough income to pay for everything AND maintain any kind of actual life.

You’ve gotta take some time to grieve after a divorce…Maybe a long time. Because getting divorced is the ULTIMATE break up. And we all know breaking up is hard to do.

They say time and mercy heal all wounds. The challenge is surviving the passage of time, ya’ll. So be gentle with your divorcing and newly divorced friends. It’s a pretty horrific thing they’re going through.

This is gonna be a little, short post, but it’s gotta be said. STOP airing all your grievances on social media! Keep your snarky little comments OFF Twitter! Keep your personal, thinly-veiled jabs at the other party off Facebook! You’re. Not. Helping. Being pissed off about the ex boyfriend or ex husband or ex wife or ex girlfriend in a public forum is ugly, dumb, and completely immature. ESPECIALLY if you have kids who have access to your vitriol about their dad/mom.

If your child support isn’t being paid, I’m sorry. Stuff happens in people’s lives, and sometimes they CAN’T pay you AND keep the lights on. And even if they’re just being hateful and refusing to pay? Public shaming doesn’t make them any less hateful. For real. You’re not solving your problem. You’re simply ramping up the conflict, creating drama, and adding more tension to BOTH of your lives.

If you and your ex are engaged in some sort of court case, DON’T GO SPEWING ALL OVER YOUR FB PAGE. You look like a vicious b*tch–and that term applies to men who do it as well. And then you provide evidence to the other person that they can simply blow up 16″x 24″ on a poster in court to show how horrible you are. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve advised a client to SHUT UP on Facebook or Twitter. You’re only hurting yourself with that kind of behavior. You think your page is totally private? Maybe it is, and maybe someone is seeing stuff and passing it on to the ex. You will sink yourself, and you’ll have no one but yourself to blame. Because in the words of my Uncle Terry, and the Great John Wayne,

Life is not perfect; I think we all know that. I’ve had a rough couple of days. I was up working until 11:00 last night (Yeah! E-filing! Damn YOU!!!! E-filing!!!) I woke up with the knowledge that I had another full day, but at least my first “You must wear clothes and look presentable” appointment wasn’t until 11 a.m. Before that, I got an email from a client thanking me profusely for the teeny tiny itty bitty thing I had done for him, and a phone call from an older lady who has called me no less than a dozen times in the past 3 months, thanking me for helping her. I did precious little for her; I just answered the phone when she called.

This afternoon I had two new client consultations. Not difficult stuff. One may become a new client; one can probably handle things on her own. The first one was distraught….Have ya’ll noticed I’m a big fat cry baby? I try really hard not to cry with my clients, but damn it! I suck at that…

I had other work that I did, work that pays, work that will hopefully protect my client from BigLaw’s nasty allegations come next Monday when I have to be in SLC at 9:00a.m. for a hearing. I hope I did enough. I hate responding to BigLaw’s filings. They really suck. But then there is this Woman, my client, with a child. And I am again emotionally sucked into it without even wanting to be.

I have gotten better. I don’t cry with all of them anymore. I can pat their shoulders, squeeze a hand, and give them reassurance, while telling them what to expect. I can walk away, relieved that they can’t afford a lawyer because I just KNOW they would turn into Super Needy client who runs out of money and becomes the most demanding at that point.

I had some personal distress this week as well. And this morning, as I was sunk in the Lows of that, I had the Highs of my client and this old lady telling me that I am definitely OK.

It’s a weird place to live, my head….My therapist thinks I’m great. He doesn’t have to deal with my neurosis….

Like the poor jackass pictured above, it’s possible I was carrying a little too much…

My mom, dad, sisters, and I have an ongoing conversation via text message that my brother in law dubbed the “Tatter.” Back just after Halloween I was bemoaning on the Tatter how Walmart already had Christmas stuff up and how much I hated it. The response was quick– “I love it!” “I can’t wait to get on with Christmas!” And then there was me, Queen Grinch herself, grinching about how Christmas is depressing, wears me out, and that I generally can’t stand it. Bah Humbug.

My mom commented that I just need to focus on the Reason for the Season, the birth of Christ. And that part I’m totally ok with…It’s just all the Pressure. The stress, the expectations I cannot and never do meet, the crowds and traffic and noise and PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. The Reason gets drowned out in all the madness.

Then there’s the inevitable Dealing With The Other Parent. As I’ve said, my situation with that is generally no problem at all, it’s the Other one that we have to deal with. There’s always Trauma Drama in that department, and the anxiety in thinking about it just puts me into a panic.

I have generalized anxiety disorder. And panic disorder. And major depressive disorder, and dysthmia (having symptoms of depression for 2 years or longer). I’m on medication to address the more pronounced symptoms of all this Crazy, because I still have to function. Some days are worse; some days are better. But Christmas….UGH.

Maybe in another post I’ll go into what it means to have a brain that wants to kill me, but for today, I’m tired, I’ve been on the verge of tears all day for no reason, I have the shakes, and I’ve had pain in my chest now since Monday with Christmas looming and an empty bank account. So please do forgive the Bah Humbug. I’m working on it.

*I love this one. From a very long time ago. My brother continues to struggle, but this is what’s inside him…even if he can’t see it right now. And I believe he can come back to this; but then, I’m biased, because I love the guy to death.

17 November 2010

Bit of a Rant 🙂

I was going through one of my saved emails folders tonight and came across this gem. It was a response from my brother to an “I Voted Democrat because…(fill in the blank)” type email that I’d forwarded to him. To give you some background: My brother barely graduated from high school, and is a felon in Idaho because they have a “3 DUI’s equals a felony law”, and his “first” DUI was a prosecutor’s Good Idea for a plea bargain when he was a teenager (I’m thinkin’ 15 years old, but I could be wrong on the exact age), instead of a minor possession charge. (Incidentally, I’d like to find the prosecutor and punch him in the throat for THAT bit of grossly horrible legal advice).

My brother’s thoughts on the Economy, American Ingenuity, Etc.:

“I believe this is the way it is suppose to be. Our freedom to think is being stripped away by seat belt warning chimes, metaphorically speaking. The opportunity to surrender our minds is readily available and most people will. I believe this will lead to the downfall of society, but lets not think of it as an end but a new beginning, for when society falls natural selection can once again cleanse the gene pool of those who would blow dry their hair in the shower if the tag didn’t tell them not to. I don’t think I’ve heard of a single great thing this nation has accomplished by playing it safe (Franklin, key, kite, lightning… I rest). Necessity is the mother of invention and if our greatest necessity is how we can change the DVD without leaving the couch, then by God we will find a way. By adopting this safety first mentality we are allowing trillions of tax payer dollars to be sent into the private sector to save businesses that should have gone the way of the dinosaur due to their failure to adapt, and why? To save jobs? Stabilize the economy? It looks to me like the economy was stabilizing itself. Natural selection. And to those who would lose their jobs, why would they be too incompetent to survive? The field they specialized in would have new openings for business owners who could provide jobs for others. These monster companies started that way: Americans with a dream and the balls to do something about it. Well, I have balls and I’m not afraid to let ’em hang out from time to time, and I believe there are still others out there that have balls; I’ve seen them from time to time. The state of our country is wonderful for those who are still able to say, “Hey, lightnin’ storm comin’. Better get my key and kite.” These are exciting times we live in. Everyone doesn’t have to believe the same thing. Some things are true whether you believe them or not. Just a little rant…”

I’m gonna add a Hear, Hear to this, even though I may be coming Damned close to being “de-selected”. But then I’m a raging Libertarian :).

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Idaho Child Support Calculator Software!
This is an online subscription child support calculation software for the state of Idaho. It’s a subscription site, but it does have a 14 day free trial option available.

Idaho Child Support Guidelines
This is a pretty lengthy PDF document, but scroll to the bottom…it has a table with child support amounts already calculated based on total income of both parties.

Idaho Child Support Services
LOTS of good information regarding getting a child support order, enforcing it, modifying it, and forms to do all these things on your own.

My Links

CLIMB Wyoming
CLIMB Wyoming is an organization whose goal is to help single mothers become better educated and able to support themselves and their families.

Department of Defense Manpower Data Single Record Request
A Military Service Affidavit is required in all divorce filings in this state….It has to do with complying with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. Use this link to get a certificate from DOD showing the military status of opposing party in your case.

Facing Facts: BPDfamily.com
This is a great site with pertinent information that can be used in dealing with an ex (or spouse or child) who has borderline personality disorder. Solid information.

Kathy Elton Consulting
Kathy is a mediator I’ve used before. I like her style, and I like her prices :). Additionally, her website has a blog that has good information regarding mediation (required by law in all UT divorces.)

Leaving the Law
A blog about finding life after being a lawyer…I need to read through all of these posts.

Low Income Housing US
This page is a clearinghouse for subsidized/low income rental housing information in all 50 states.

Utah Visitation Relocation Statute
There is statute that spells out what the minimum visitation should be when a parent relocates after a divorce/custody decree is entered. That’s HERE. Remember–these are MINIMUMS.